stuckinstuff

Stuff Is Disappearing Soon

There's going to be some missing stuff soon.  We're having a garage sale this weekend.

My wife and I spent a little too much time tonight heatedly discussing what items might not get sold.  My  plan is to sell a lot.  And she wants to, too.  It just turns out that I need to avoid selling any of our wooden German toys.  To be honest, I'm fine with that.

The goal is to rid our house of hundreds of items.  Pretty much everything is going to be priced at either $1 or $5, with a few high-ticket (but still amazingly inexpensive) items thrown in for good measure.

What's left will be swapped... more on swapping soon.

Billions and Billions - Are We Talking the Poor or the Cellphone Sales?

Sara Corbett has written a fascinating (long) article for the New York Times Magazine, Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?  Hmm.  I just don't quite know how to react.  For example, read this from the article.  It's a paragraph describing the responses that anthropologists from Nokia received when discussing possible cellphone features with people in developing countries,

Jung and Tulusan said they’d found this everywhere, the phone representing what people are aspiring to. “It’s an easy way to see what’s important to them, what their challenges are,” Jung said. One Liberian refugee wanted to outfit a phone with a land-mine detector so that he could more safely return to his home village. In the Dharavi slum of Mumbai, people sketched phones that could forecast the weather since they had no access to TV or radio. Muslims wanted G.P.S. devices to orient their prayers toward Mecca. Someone else drew a phone shaped like a water bottle, explaining that it could store precious drinking water and also float on the monsoon waters. In Jacarèzinho, a bustling favela in Rio, one designer drew a phone with an air-quality monitor. Several women sketched phones that would monitor cheating boyfriends and husbands. Another designed a “peace button” that would halt gunfire in the neighborhood with a single touch.

So does Nokia see billions of cellphone customers or billions of impoverished people when it designs a cellphone that can withstand the rough and tumble conditions of a developing-world slum?  Does it matter if they see both?

I suppose one reason that stories like Corbett's sit tentatively on my mind and heart is that my experience has been that cellphones and other technology gadgets are as much a conduit to unnecessary consumption as they are a means to economic subsistence.  What will Nokia or partners of Nokia do with their billions of new customers?  Market them, says the cynic in me.  If corporations can sell a poverty stricken person a cellphone for $25 surely they'll be tempted to sell that person a brand name pair of shoes for $18.  To a point, of course it is better to have a nice pair of shoes instead of no shoes at all.  It's just that most of us in the West have passed that point.  A nice pair of shoes is not enough to celebrate.  Nor the nicer pair of shoes we want after we see an advertisement.

For us, it never ends.  For the developing world, it's just beginning.  With what I trust is genuine humility and concern, I'd say there is hope for our world to get consumption right.  It will be hard.  Very hard.

Sometimes It Just Makes Sense

My circumstances this weekend have allotted me some spare time for reading and watching videos on my computer.  My content intake included the fifth DVD in the series Planet Earth, “The Future,” which addresses questions of conservation and sustainability of our planet.  Of course I also made time for Wendell Berry, reading “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine” and “Solving for Pattern,” both in The Art of the Commonplace.  Both Planet Earth and Wendell Berry reminded me of an epistemological commitment I have: sometimes we know something is true simply because it makes sense.

A couple of weekends ago a friend doubted the usefulness “it just makes sense” for gaining knowledge.  He likes evidence.  I do too.  But “it just makes sense” is a form of evidence, I contend.  It’s an epistemological tool that smart people (I reveal my bias and pride all at once) use.  Yet is is not a tool for the lazy.  Believing in something that “just makes sense” takes a lot of work.  Here’s why.

When we say that something “just makes sense” what we are actually saying is something closer to this, “As I take in this new information, all that I know to be true and expect to be validated affirms that I ought to believe in this new information.  On that basis of knowledge and expectation, I’m going to believe this new information because it just makes sense.”

Now I hear, for example, a lot of both sides of the environmental debate.  As a Christian, many of my peers are skeptics of our environmental problems.  They feel like the science does not support things like global warming.  I’m suspicious that they get their information mostly from the likes of Rush Limbaugh.  As a Christian who dislikes Rush Limbaugh, I’ve tried to get my information about the environmental debate from the likes of Planet Earth or World Resources Institute or books or magazines.  I say all this to make a point.  “Sense” is directly proportional to the quality of the knowledge and expectation that invokes it.

Thus “it just makes sense” is an epistemological tool that works for the hard working knowledge-seeker and fails miserably for the lazy knowledge-wanter.  Knowledge-seekers work hard to develop their discernment.  They take in a lot of information from a lot of sources and check and double check that information.  And so they are able to develop a sense of what seems true.  Knowledge-wanters let another person do their work for them.  Knowledge-wanters usually rely on one (or very few) sources for their information, and thus dull their discernment.

Look, what’s my point here?  Don’t be lazy!  Don’t just consume because so-and-so says to consume.  Look around a bit more.  Find out if other people think that consuming is not helpful.  Don’t just write off environmental concerns because so-and-so says it’s bunk.  Find out if there is genuine reason to be concerned about the environment.  Work hard.  Pretty soon things might start to “just make sense.”

Checkout NEED

I first ran across NEED Magazine at the offices of Floresta here in San Diego.  NEED Magazine is worth some of your money and time.  Here's why.

As I've become more involved in justice issues over the years curious friends have asked me why.  Why am I interested in doing what I can to help those who cannot help themselves?  Two answers come to mind.  Awareness and prayer.  Or maybe it should be prayer and awareness.  Honestly I cannot remember which came first.  What I do know is that for more than a decade of my life few days have gone by that I've not prayed for the needs of the poor and few weeks have gone by that I've not sought ways to learn more about the plight of the poor.  It's a bit too theological for this post, but I'd even suggest that prayer is a kind of awareness.  For when we pray and ask God to help others and help us to help others, we are allowing God to work in our hearts and in our lives - allowing him to create more awareness of the needs of others.

The results of my efforts to learn and to pray are not spectacular.  I'm no humanitarian guru.  Just one person whose concerns and efforts are making a little bit of difference in a positive direction.  Perhaps there will be more for me to do down the road.  But little contributions as well as large start with making an effort to understand.

NEED Magazine seems like an excellent place to start.  The articles are informative.  The wonderful photographs are heart-stirring.  When you read the magazine, you feel like you are closer to participating.  It is a platform that produces awareness and motivation.

Eliot Spitzer - Private Lies

The reactions are many to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s implication in a prostitution ring.  Thankfully, everyone is outraged regardless of political persuasion.  I’ve gotten most of my information from National Public Radio and The New York Times, which (bite your tongues my conservative friends) have seemed to me objective and right in much of their analysis and commentary.

What seems most troubling to me is that Spitzer has repeatedly called his actions a “private” matter and a “private” failing.  While he has admitted that his actions have damaged his public career, he has not been willing to admit that his actions are a public wrong.  That sentiment, at least in my limited view, seems as troubling as all that he did to victimize many prostitutes.

For years Spitizer worked as a public defender as the District Attorney.  You know where I’m going here.  Why is a District Attorney called a “public defender”?  It is because crimes are wrongs that offend the public.  Soliciting a prostitute is not a “private” matter, as if it were an immoral but legal extramarital affair.  (Arguments can be made that immoral but legal affairs also offend the public, and I hold that view.  But it is not the point here.)  Literally nothing Spitzer did was private.  He used money he received as a public official to break public laws with another human being in public hotels.  He also had to involve people other than himself and the woman he victimized.  He had to book his affair through others.  Surely he became aware of this opportunity through others.  And quite simply it is impossible to imagine that there were not other people involved in covering up his wrongdoing.

A terribly sad outcome of this mess is that a champion of fighting crime, Spitzer, is now aping the best of political spin artists.  “Immorality is a private matter.”  But public crime flourishes amongst private lies.

The Whole Horse - Wendell Berry again

"One of the primary results - and one of the primary needs - of industrialism is the separation of people and places and products from their histories... This is an economy, and in fact a culture, of the one-night stand... In this condition, we have many commodities, but little satisfaction, little sense of the sufficiency of anything."

This from the first handful of sentences in Wendell Berry's essay "The Whole Horse" published in The Art of the Commonplace (Shoemaker & Hoard: 2002).

Over time as I have taken in Berry's essays I've been left with a nagging aftertaste.  Berry makes so much sense, so clearly articulates what is wrong in the world and what could be right if only... "if only."  But how?  I've yet to meet Wendell Berry.  And I'd like to.  I'll be surprised if he is not a joyful pessimist.  I'm not sure I've ever met a joyful pessimist.  But I suspect he is one, and that such a person would be, on the whole, enjoyable to spend time with.  Yet I'm not sure how I'd feel leaving a joyful pessimist - finishing up the conversation, shaking hands, and going back home.  That's the trouble I've had with Wendell Berry over the years.  Going back home after reading him.

"The Whole Horse" is a fine example of Berry's attention-grabbing critique of modern industrialism.  It's always an essay you can walk away from.  I recommend it.

Review: Serve God Save the Planet by J. Matthew Sleeth

J. Matthew Sleeth, Serve God Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action (Zondervan, 2006).

Christian readers of Serve God Save the Planet will be challenged on multiple levels.  The book is a stirring and convicting call for Christians to integrate environmental stewardship into their everyday lives.  Along with advocating stewardship of the earth, Sleeth argues passionately for a Kingdom-focused Christian life that repudiates worldliness of all sorts.  His call is earnest and will stretch the minds of thoughtful Christians.  Yet equally challenging will be the humility required to value Sleeth’s arguments when time after time his haste leads to incomplete data, poor analysis, and untrained exegesis.

I recommend this book for two kinds of Christians.  First, for Christians who already know that “environmentalism” is not a bad word.  You are the kind of Christian who understands that being responsible with the earth is right in God’s eyes.  Moreover you know that God asks you to be a good steward of His world.  You don’t need convincing.  But from time-time you like a good pep talk.  Or maybe you need an introduction to the topic of caring for creation.  Well, here it is.

The second kind of Christian should read this book as a challenge.  I’m talking to Christians who do think that “environmentalism” is a bad word.  You are unable to disassociate the activity of recycling from the person of Al Gore.  And since you think Al Gore is a terrible person, you treat recycling as a suspicious activity.  You likely believe that environmentalism is an affront to your personal liberties and, by way of higher taxes, your wallet.  This is why I think you should read this book.

You have to challenge your notions about environmentalism.  Honestly answer this question: Can you think of more quotes against environmentalism by talk show hosts or more quotes about caring for creation from the Bible?  If you can spend minutes and even hours discussing “liberal environmentalism” but run for your concordance in order to find verses about stewardship of God’s creation, well then you ought to challenge yourself by reading this book.

Contradiction Must Feel Better Than Virtue

I am so much not a fanatical sports fan that I feel a bit funny writing this.  I’ve rewritten the first few sentences several times.  Sports writing is just not my thing.  But I cannot help myself.  And that’s probably why I’m not a fanatical sports fan.

It is quite possible that I am the only San Diegan who feels that losing is a better option than watching Phillip Rivers act like an idiot on the sidelines.

On the way home from work today I briefly listened to some sports talk radio.  A caller brushed off the immature and unprofessional behavior of Rivers in the Chargers’ win over the Colts.  And the host responded something like, “It just matters that he is winning.”  How Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds wish they could receive such a pass.  But neither of them are winning anymore, not on the field nor off.

Face it, for the most part professional sports is not about winning anymore.  It’s about beating the rules, not the other team.  It’s about turning your head the other way while cheering.  It’s about contradiction - crying foul at the cheaters while reveling in their cheater-enhanced performances.  Whatever most sports fans feel these days, it sure isn’t virtue.

Review: Schor The Overspent American

Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer (Basic Books, 1998).

More than twenty years ago I went on a ski trip with some friends.  We stopped in a little town at the base of the mountain to grab breakfast, and as we ate and talked some folks came into the restaurant who could only be described as hillbillies.  You’d swear their mouths were used to cast the molds for those fake Billy Bob Teeth.  And they acted like it.  For some reason, all these years later, I remember the question I posed to my friends.  It went something like, “People like you and me aspire to be like famous celebrities.  But I wonder if those people over there just wish they could ever be normal like us?”

Rick and Kay Warren Interview - You Should Listen

Over the years I've found an interesting principle at work in my life.  If I say something good, someone else something better.  A few days ago I tried to express how many evangelical Christians miss the point of charity by making out justice and compassion ministries to be add ons to preaching the gospel.

Well I found someone(s) who makes the point better than me.  The wonderful PBS program Speaking of Faith has a series called The New Evangelical Leaders.  And Krista Tippett interviewed Rick and Kay Warren for this series.  It's a must-listen for anyone who is concerned about the Christian response to the needs of the poor.